


Hello, World

by revoltrad



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Learning to be Human, M/M, all characters are adults in this fic thx, morally grey eichi tenshouin, secret military operations, underground societies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revoltrad/pseuds/revoltrad
Summary: Hello...?Is ‘anyone’ there...?Oh...‘Great’...~===Futuristic AU in which Mikejima Madara is a part of an underground military organization tasked with rescuing geniuses who are being exploited for their infinite possibilities.
Relationships: Mikejima Madara/Shinkai Kanata
Kudos: 7





	Hello, World

> Hello...?
> 
> Is ‘anyone’ there...?
> 
> Oh...
> 
> ‘Great’...~

Madara’s field of vision narrows to the scope of his rifle. The inside of the building is black as the darkest night, as is the tactical gear he and his team wear; Madara takes point as they pass through the narrow, sterile hallways of the facility. 

They’re getting close. All the members of the unit have the floorplans of the building memorized, and Madara can feel his heartbeat elevate when they make the turn down to the hallway that leads to the final door. Almost there. Anticipation makes his focus sharper, movements more agile than ever.

Red light floods their vision as an alarm sounds; blaring with jarring echoes in the metallic hallway.

“Mikejima-kun,” Rei drawls over the earpiece in Madara’s ear, “it’s now or never.”

“I know,” Madara snaps, knowing time is not on their side now that they’ve lost the element of surprise. But, he reasons, as soon as they unplugged the Unit, the alarms would have sounded anyways. What’s two or three minutes difference going to make?

He won’t answer that. The objective supersedes any potentially messy outcome, any failure that might come to pass if they don’t pull their heist off.

The team fans out as their explosives expert, Hokuto, primes the door to detonate. Then they press against the wall as Hokuto triggers the contained explosion. The heavy metal door falls cleanly off its hinges, just as their intel had suggested it would.

Aside from the sirens and lights, things are going to plan.  
  
Madara just hopes it lasts.

He’s the first in the room, and the second his eyes land upon the unit, his heart stalls in his chest.

It can’t be.

_It can’t be._

But it _is_ ; that long-lost light blue hair drapes downward like a curtain, tangled between wires that run from sensors fixed to pale, sun-starved skin. Eyes closed, the Unit sleeps but does not dream. Dreams do not belong in the Ether. 

“Mikejima-kun, what is it?” Rei asks, concern now clear in his voice. 

“It’s _him_ ,” Madara whispers, and then his body remembers itself and he’s moving across the room to the man suspended by the wires that seem to be tucked into every corner of his body. He is afraid, at first, to reach out and touch him. 

“It’s Kanata.”

His team is doing their job already; Makoto has plugged his tablet into the console, and he’s typing away.

Being back here gives Madara pause; it looks eerily like _his_ facility. He shakes the thought. Now isn’t the time for dwelling on old ghosts.  
  
“Okaaaay~,” Makoto says in that triumphant voice he only ever uses when he’s pulled off something spectacular in the world of technology. Honestly. _Hackers._ “You can unplug him now.”

Madara and Hokuto waste no time in quickly detaching the sensors from the Unit’s body, until Madara is able to gently lower the man to the cold metal beneath them.

Already he is waking up, green eyes fluttering open and then quickly shut again against the light of the room - light that he hasn’t seen properly in ages.

“Kanata-san?” Madara murmurs, low enough so that only the two of them can hear him. The Unit’s eyes flicker over to meet Madara’s, then close. For a moment, Madara panics. _Don’t go,_ he wants to say, but he knows that the drugs pumped through the Unit’s system will have dragged him back down into unconsciousness. 

“Mikejima-kun,” Rei says in his ear, “Time is a precious commodity. One you are presently running out of.”

“Senpai?” asks Hokuto, uncertainty making itself obvious in his furrowed brows. 

“Sorry,” Madara says quickly, “Cover me. Let’s go.” 

He pulls the Unit, _Kanata,_ up into his arms. As the largest one of the group, it will be his job to carry their quarry from the building to the van where the extraction team awaits them. His team readies their weapons.

They will not get out of the building without a fight.

Hokuto takes point, now, with Makoto on Madara’s left and the other two members of the team to his right and rear. Madara takes the center, the Unit tucked into his arms. 

They move fast, but not fast enough. They’re met with resistance once, which Hokuto dispatches quickly enough with a few bursts of ammunition, then again from behind as a group of armed guards catch up with them. Lights flash from the muzzles of their rifles as the team covers Madara, who ducks around a corner.

He hates this part; he hates it when others risk their lives to cover him. But he is grateful for their protection, as the man he carries in his arms is more precious to him than any other. 

Madara wonders if Kanata will remember.

“ _Go!_ ” Hokuto shouts.

“On your left,” Rei calls into their ears just in time. Madara presses himself into the alcove as best he can as bullets whiz by his head. Seconds from death, and yet it’s over in only a few more, armed guards bleeding out at their feet as they sprint through the corridor. They’ve almost made it when the alarms cease their whaling. 

“Mikejima-kun,” says a different voice, and it’s not coming from their earpieces. It’s coming from the intercom system in the building. Madara _knows_ that voice. 

Tenshouin Eichi. 

“Mikejima-kun, I _do_ hope you know what you’re doing, hm?”

“It doesn’t matter, go!” Hokuto reminds them, dragging Madara from his brief panic. 

They crash through the doors, and the rest is a blur. The black van’s doors open, and Kanata is pulled from Madara’s arms so that the extraction team can get to work making sure he’s stable. Jun is pressing gauze to Makoto’s cheek, where a bullet grazed him. The driver doesn’t even wait for everyone to buckle in before he guns the engine and they’re off. 

Madara passes the drive in a daze.

He found him.

Finally, he found him.


End file.
